The Blazers owner had been meandering the seas aboard his private yacht and was positioned off the coast of Africa when his beloved team was playing the Denver Nuggets in the final game of the preseason. It was 2007, a time of great hope for a rebuilding franchise, which boasted reigning Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy, No. 1 overall pick Greg Oden and future All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge.

Allen had always cherished the Blazers, a franchise he had owned for nearly 20 years, but his interest had been reenergized by the team's collection of young talent and the tantalizing possibility of the future. So he sent a small production team to central Oregon and they beamed the game live to his yacht in Africa -- he wasn't about to miss a game, preseason or otherwise.

"His love for the Blazers, his passion for the Blazers, was unmatched," said Indiana Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan, who worked in the Blazers' front office for 10 years. "Nobody loved that team more than him."

Allen had so many projects, interests, businesses and philanthropic endeavors, it was hard to keep them all straight. But the Blazers, which he bought in 1988, were one of his most prized possessions and he was engaged with the team to the end.

Allen was shy by nature, a quiet intellect who loved the arts, science, music and sports. He could just as effortlessly banter about African safaris and Jimi Hendrix as he could brain research and computer code. But when the lights came on at the Moda Center, when Allen plopped down at his courtside seat along the baseline near the Blazers' bench -- often wrapped in his trademark blue jacket -- one of the world's wealthiest men evolved into just another guy at the end of the bar watching his favorite team.

"He worked on a total higher intellectual plane than the rest of us and you could have a conversation about a transaction or a trade or the direction of the team," Neil Olshey, the Blazers' President of Basketball Operations, said. "But the minute he walked out there, you were sitting next to a super fan. He lived and died with every dribble, and every outcome."

Few things brought out the super fan in Allen more than the NBA draft. He loved unearthing talent and watching it grow. It gave him a spark. When the Blazers' video department logged video of draft prospects, they didn't just do so for the front office and the coaching staff -- they also did it for Allen. The video was loaded to a special computer server, which Allen could access and watch anywhere at his leisure. He would send a barrage of emails to his general managers, asking question after question about any number of basketball topics, and the back-and-forth could last more than two hours.

Of course, he would often just visit the practice facility and watch tape and probe his staff in person.

There are legendary stories about him viewing hours and hours of video and joining meetings in the build-up to the draft, raising doubts about a player's dribbling ability, shooting or athleticism. He almost always let his staff make personnel decisions, but he wanted to know why they were making the decisions and he peppered them with questions.

Every now and then, he'd overrule them. When general manager Kevin Pritchard wanted to cut second-round pick Patty Mills in favor of veteran Ime Udoka after the 2009 training camp, Allen scoffed. Allen had paid for the right's to draft Mills in the second round and he liked the point guard's potential, liked what he had seen on video.

"He would sit in that draft room with us for 12 hours straight if you let him," Buchanan said. "He loved talking about players in the draft, loved hearing people's opinions. He was a very astute listener, had a great memory. He could refer back to comments people made about a player three or four drafts beforehand. The thing I'll always remember is, he was one of the richest men in the world and had so many endeavors. Time was so valuable for him. Why would he want to sit and talk about second-round draft picks? He just loved it. He ate it up. It lit a fire in him when you talked about the draft. He loved young players and finding the potential and talent and future in young players."

Allen never married. He didn't have children.

Many theorize that Blazers players were like his sons.

"He loved players," Olshey said. "That's why he loved the draft. It was about the future and it was about seeing things other people didn't see. And it was him raising children, wanting to watch the guys like Damian (Lillard). He had watched tape. He had been at the workout. He had dinner with him. He really felt invested with him. So to watch this young guy go on this remarkable journey and lead the team to where he's led them and be a first-team All-NBA player from where he was ... he really embraced that part of it. And I think that made him incredibly unique."

Allen traveled the world, but the Blazers were never far from his mind. He had cameras installed inside the practice facility so he could cue up video and watch practices and predraft workouts. Even when he wasn't present, he was there.

The Cannes Film Festival is in May, smack dab in the middle of draft workouts. But Allen wouldn't let a visit to France get in the way of watching prospects, he'd just log into that server and scrutinize the team's future talent on his mobile phone.

"You've got half of Hollywood on the boat," Olshey said, "and Paul's watching tape on a guy we like in the second round."

But while his affinity for the Blazers was unique, his love for the franchise seemingly had no boundaries. He knew what was going on in virtually every aspect of the operation. He offered input on uniforms. He helped make decisions about the television and radio broadcasts. He even gave suggestions about food and beverage options at the Moda Center. When it occurred to Allen that the Blazers didn't have a dedicated place at the Moda Center for kids to hang out, he instructed President Chris McGowan to create a space for kids to play during the game, a place for them to "interact above and beyond the game." The Blazers now have a Kids Zone in the 300 level.

One time following a game, during McGowan's second season in Portland, Allen picked up a piece of paper off the Blazers' bench and scribbled on it.

"He started drawing a picture and he handed it to me and he goes, 'You should make t-shirts that are like this,'" McGowan said. "It was a player-focused t-shirt. It was my second year and I was like, 'That's pretty amazing.' His attention to detail goes to a t-shirt he wants in the fan shop. He drew it up really nicely and handed it to me."

Allen's love of hoops spawned from his childhood, when, growing up in Seattle, he fell in love with the Seattle SuperSonics. He found the game graceful and beautiful, people who knew him say, and he always strived for his teams to play an appealing brand of basketball. When he was first stricken with cancer, in 1983, he planned his chemotherapy appointments around Sonics games, making sure he wouldn't miss one. Five years later, with his health problems in the rearview mirror, he bought the Blazers. He was 35 and living the dream.

Over the years, he was never bashful about trying to spread his love of hoops.

"He would always talk to me about basketball being beautiful and about how much he loved watching," McGowan said. "He viewed the game at that kind of level. I came from hockey and when we would sit next to each other at games, if something amazing would happen on the court, he would turn to me and shout: 'Are you a basketball guy now!'"

Allen remained a basketball guy until his final breath.

Twelve days before he died, the Blazers were getting ready to fly to Phoenix for an exhibition game against the Suns. Olshey was killing time at home in front of the television, watching "Law & Order" reruns, when his phone rang.

It was Allen.

"Are you watching the Clippers game?" he asked.

The L.A. Clippers were playing the Minnesota Timberwolves in the opening night of the preseason. The game was a 27-point blowout and far from interesting.

But Allen, sitting in a hospital bed recovering from medical treatments, was glued to the television.

"He just wanted to talk," Olshey said. "I think he got a really good burst of energy during his treatment. He wanted to talk basketball. One of the things that's really unique about Paul is, everything was so bifurcated that if he wanted to talk hoops, he called people that worked in hoop. If he wanted to talk music, he called Mick Jagger. If he wanted to talk football, he called Pete Carroll. Who else gets that?

"It was fun and it was a great conversation. He just really wanted to talk basketball, talk about the team, talk about where the league was. That's how much he cared about -- not just the Trail Blazers -- but the game of basketball. It meant so much to him."